Clinton: Demonizing leaders is dangerous

Former President Bill Clinton, following up on comments that warn against the threat posed by extremist groups, warned Sunday that angry anti-government rhetoric has led to a worrisome increase in threats against the president and other elected officials.

Anger easily translates into violence, Clinton said, and people should be careful that the language they use to criticize officials don’t demonize them and make them targets for violence.

Clinton, speaking on ABC News’ “This Week,” said he not only worries about threats against President Barack Obama and the Congress but by “careless language,” citing examples like leaked memo from a New Jersey teachers union that contained a joke containing a suggestion that Republican Gov. Chris Christie should die.

Clinton’s comments followed a speech on Friday where he warned that American was on a “slippery slope” from “reckless rhetoric” and said such talk against the government led to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

15 COMMENTS

If the politicians would quit going aqainst the will of the people they would not have this problem. Politicians are here to work for the people NOT AGAINST them. That is why we have a vote. Mr Clinton you have a lot of room to talk. Your administration single handedly destroyed manufacturing in America. Between NAFTA and the EPA (End Productive America) you and your administration has successfully ran most of the good paying manufacturing jobs out of the country. You claim the American public is overpaid and should not make over 10 dollars an hour. Mr Clinton are you not part of the American public?

Where do you come up with this “dark side” nonsense? Our failing nation at the hands of these silver-tongued crimpols we now have as non-representatives isn’t simply a function of my imagination.

Every President regardless of party affiliation along with their Congressional facilitators since the days of LBJ have been systematically weakening the U.S. in terms of infrastructure and budget management along with the dissolution of our manufacturing base. David Rockefeller sent Nixon to China to hopefully exploit their massive labor base. The rest is history.

They’ve been busy strengthening China, India, Malaysia, Central, South America and anywhere else that their corporatist sponsors can locate cheap labor markets for their plants all in the name of NWO “globalism gone wild”…! / : |

No sir, the “dark side” is best represented by our now, terminally corrupt, out of touch Vaderesque leadership that if pushed enough will turn on the citizens with a mighty vengeance through the implementation of martial law and law enforcement that will be militarized with the stroke of a pen.
They have all the materiel they need simply awaiting authorization to crush dissent in an open fashion when ordered to do so.

Clinton’s, Waco debacle under the guidance of then AG, Janet Reno was a message to the unwashed masses and now this retired president is evidently still in the business of threatening in a not so veiled manner. Bill Clinton along with H.W. Bush and G.W. Bush represent some of the most corrupt leaders ever to ascend to our nation’s highest office. I know so and my statement is not simply based on mere speculation.

“Dark side” as in aquiesing to the threat of mindless violence as anything worth NOT CONDEMNING NO MATTER WHAT THE CIRCUMSTANCES!!

If the caps and exclamation points make it appear that I was yelling at you, I will accept the literary style points.

I thought you were a civilized man, not just another knee-jerk weinie. I don’t hew to the notion that we will get through this without pain and suffering, but these are the times that call for men of superior strength and integrity, not whiners and faux revolutionaries. I think you have the stuff. Show us.

Mr. logtroll, I’m beginning to think you are few ballast rocks short on having an even keel.

What caps, what exclamation points? Your assumption that I perceived you were yelling at me…huh? Now I’m the “Crazed One”… / : |

Since you’ve landed on this site you’ve made it a practice to snipe at fellow posters. You’ve attempted censorship and accusations along with somewhat crude name-calling in spite of you criticizing others for doing so.

This happens somewhat regularly for me, but in spite of it I always come back with a well-written, articulate, mindful reply relative to my thoughts concerning the order of things.

I know you are capable of posting something original to this site with merit. Why don’t you do so instead of mucking about other’s comments like a bottom feeder.

All I can say is far superior intellects to mine have had the final word concerning the sorry state of affairs in which we find ourselves regardless of camp-following Congressional grifters along with their so-called ‘Congressional delegations’ as yourself who’ve managed to come up with some ‘grant money’ relative to reforestation efforts; ie., another government boondoggle supported by specious data. It almost sounds like a kumbaya perpetual motion machine to me. If it’s too good to be true, then it isn’t.

“It will save us money and generate global environmental benefits. Every $1000 of federal tax dollars invested will generate $8000 in direct economic activity and $16,000 in indirect activity, resulting in $2500 in new tax revenues (not new taxes).” …extract from your post to “Time for change start at home”

*****

“These are times that try men’s souls”…mine especially

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” …Thomas Paine

I want to make an articulate, mindful reply sans snipes (which won’t be much fun, I admit).

First, this thread is about “careless language” by anti-government rhetoricists leading to violence against public officials. The early comments posted seemed to support such violence as a reasonable course of action on the part of some who don’t agree with others and get angry. GL and I don’t agree that anger leading to violence is ever a reasonable and condonable action.

I apologize that my attempts to be clever and witty offended you so much. However, I thought that give and take, thrust and parry, were part of the special appeal of CHB. I reject the notion that anyone but the owner of a site has the authority to screen the “membership” based on how long someone has been posting or that a newcomer’s wit challenges an old-timer’s dominance and comfort.

Your attack on my personal example of how an individual can influence the workings of government, from a thread that was about such things, was a bit off-base. If you read the Act closely you will find that it is not a grant or boondoggle that I am grifting through Congressional camp-following. It is an internal funding mechanism to the Forest Service whereby Forests have to compete for a significant portion of their management dollars based upon maximizing a range of benefits to the landscape and to local communities. Alas, I am not an accomplished grifter, and I get nothing from the Act in the way of pecuniary compensation.

As for my kumbaya economic claims and specious data, that comes from ten years of work evaluating this sort of activity and has benefitted from the participation of a team of PhD economists. In my view, most of our problems stem from non-obvious (and unsimplistic) sources. We need to change the way we think about things before we can change the way things are. For the most part what we call “economics” is narrowly examining sell-buy transactions, failing to account for whole cloth benefit-cost relationships of entire economic systems. I participate with a group of politically uninfluential professionals in the field of forestry nationally (think of us as weinie Congressional camp-folowing grifters, if you are more comfortable with that image) who are in the process of developing a benefit-cost evaluation model that could be used for all manner of investments (including federal “stimulus” money) and to help educate us culturally to the difference between “next quarter profits” economics vs “benefit-cost” economics. It is a complicated subject and difficult to render into meaningful sound bytes that compete well in this sort of forum. So I appreciate your skepticism, but try to hold the door open just a crack that you might not miss something useful one day.

As to my monkeys-throwing-turds metaphor from many months ago, I can’t seem to get past the appropriateness of the image. I apply it to my own actions from time to time as a check on my mental and functional utility.

We are living in dangerous times where our Hegelian government will not allow a crisis to go to waste… Increasing Anti-Government sentiment gives the government perfect cover for “another” false flag opportunity to stage and execute another attack on its own citizens to pass more unpopular legislation to tighten the reins of control on the population… The drums are beating and they are getting louder… Another domestic terror attack to be perpetrated by our own government is coming.. Bill Clinton’s guilty concious has been awoken during the 15th anniversary of the O.K. bombing.

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